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Beauty of the bird is more important than the scarcity of the species.

Join Date: Nov 2012

Location: Black Country

Posts: 6,116

Mealy Redpoll
It was with some sadness that I realised that this would be the last time I could tick these birds on my year list as in just 37 days they will become the nominate form of the complex and our resident Lesser Redpolls will be relegated to sub-species status once again. I still find this quite hard to accept, as most Lessers show a much darker, sometimes almost a mahogany brown tone of plumage and a much slimmer structure which contrasts markedly with the type of birds I was looking at today - still, I suppose that you cant argue with D.N.A. (well not so far at least) although I suspect that this complex will merit further review before too long? per Chaz Mason
Good Birding YAMYAM

Mealy Redpoll
It was with some sadness that I realised that this would be the last time I could tick these birds on my year list as in just 37 days they will become the nominate form of the complex and our resident Lesser Redpolls will be relegated to sub-species status once again. I still find this quite hard to accept, as most Lessers show a much darker, sometimes almost a mahogany brown tone of plumage and a much slimmer structure which contrasts markedly with the type of birds I was looking at today - still, I suppose that you cant argue with D.N.A. (well not so far at least) although I suspect that this complex will merit further review before too long? per Chaz Mason
Good Birding YAMYAM

Chaz is a little out of the loop - IOC has changed its position and the split of Lesser and Mealy is retained come 1st January 2018.

Beauty of the bird is more important than the scarcity of the species.

Join Date: Nov 2012

Location: Black Country

Posts: 6,116

Had some Hawfinch over centre got Andy onto them who got a few poor shots in snow. Not sure how many as there were some Greenfinch as well. Hopefully Andy will send me some pics to have look at. Will let you know per Pete Hackett
Good Birding YAMYAM

Thanks to Janet for calling me down to the track by the signpost on Friday to nab the Firecrests......I was stationed half way up the this track where they appeared last week....but drew a blank on Friday......popped over to Swan pool for the Goldeneyes but only got the female - and then only for 3 secs as she spent most time under the water.
3 Kingfishers and the Kestrel made up for the earlier misses.